Project Life - Week 2

Right on schedule and so far so good I keep telling myself.  It was definitely a lot easier for me to put this set of pages together this week than it was last week.  Part of the reason for the added ease was using these super cool page planners that Marcy Penner made up and shared on the Studio Calico board.  This is the one I'm using for design A.

My process has been to a) gather up all my photos from my two cameras and my phone, b) choose what I really love and what I feel needs to be included and c) what little bits do I have that I saved (receipts, packaging, etc.)  After I do all that I start penciling it in on the sheet as shown above.  Last week I did it in pen and ended up scratching it out too much so this week I switched to pencil and it allowed me to make changes as needed. 

I really try to have a good representation of the week but for this week so much happened on Sunday the left side is pretty much dedicated to that day except for one spot.  I like to add the dates as I'm planning, it helps me make sure I covered as much of the week as possible.

Once that's done, I go box by box and open the photos and crop and edit as needed.  What a print saver this has been, I'm only printing what I need to print in the size I need to print it in so there is no waste at all. 

I pulled my old HP Photosmart printer off the shelf, not sure why I stopped using this little guy because it prints out the best images and makes it so easy.  It looks like its discontinued but can be found used on Amazon, here.

One thing that I found myself doing this week with the larger 6 x 4 slots is using Photoshop Elements a lot to plan them out especially with the few that had photo collages in them.  Here are close-up shots of the pages and slots in detail so you can see them.

This is the left side for the week

For the week card I stamped it with the date stamp and then attached a piece of the Trader Joe's Chocolate Croissant box that we had on Sunday morning.

For this slot I chose a photo of the croissants and added a label from the digi kit of Project Life elements.  I resized it because it need to be taller to fit all the text I wanted to add.  I also added a drop shadow to the label so it would stand out and printed it, easy took minutes which I like.

Just to let you know I don't have the Design A page protectors because they are still out of stock, I'm just using 4 x 6 page protectors and sliding in my smaller cards two by two to mimic the layout of Becky's protectors.  When they do come in I'll order them and switch my stuff out to those protectors but these are working for now. 

Simone made this super cute drawing that she ended up mailing to her cousins so I snapped a photo of it before she put it in the envelope.  I wish we could have saved it because I loved it so much but it was nice she wanted to share it.  I added a digital word art element of Ali Edward's that I got from Designer Digitals awhile back.  I also took a screen capture of the weather outlook for the week because I knew it was going to be exceptionally good for this time of year this week so I wanted to remember that.

I ended up doing only one journaling card but spoke about all the things we did on Sunday.  I used one of my new 7 Gypsies roller stamps that has the days of the week on them.  I love these stamps and I'm glad I grabbed them when I had the chance.  They will be great for this project.

For this slot I used one of my Instagram shots sized to 3.5" x 3.5" square.  I feel they fit best in the 6 x 4 slots when they are this size.  I attached it to a cream colored piece of cardstock, stamped the date on it since this was the only picture on this side of the week that was not from Sunday and added a tag with my journaling.  I inked around the edge of the tag so it would stand out more from the background.

Here's a look at the right side of the week.

I love how this slot turned out, I essentially made a hybrid page using my digital supplies.  I didn't want the background, tag or text to be shiny, so I printed those parts on cardstock and printed the photos on photo paper.  I used my little photo printer for the cardstock portion too, I just trim my cardstock to 4 x 6 and run it through the printer, so much faster than printed on 8.5 x 11 paper and them trimming it down. I love how this came out and I'm sure I'll repeat it again. 

I chose to use a template for this slot as well.  This one is all printed on photo paper vs. the other side.  It's a great way to get 3 photos in one tiny area.

The left photo is all done in Elements I added the digital journaling tag and the text and printed the whole thing on photo paper.  For the right side I wanted to add screen captures of the tweet Mini Burget put out announcing that they were coming to Elk Grove and my reply.  I just cropped them and dragged them onto a digital journaling card and printed the whole thing on photo paper.  I love this because it helps tell the story without me telling it.

Another journaling card that tells the story of Parent's Night, in my own hand, not easy for me but I did it.

Here's another Instagram photo, a collage I made the day of the 49er game showing some of our yummy food.  I printed this one out at 3.5" x 3.5" as well, attached it to some kraft cardstock and added the date and journaling.

All in all I'm pretty pleased with myself this week. I forgot to time myself but I'm guessing it took me about 2 hours to put the whole thing together.  I'm betting it will be about that much time each week give or take a few minutes.  That's a time commitment I can handle and so far I'm loving the hybrid approach, I'm sure I will stick with it.

If you playing along too, I hope you had a great time putting your week 2 together as well.